Middle-School Boys Document Teacher's Advances on Classmates

Some middle-school boys in Rhode Island thought their teacher was a creep.   He would make up flirtatious nicknames for the girls, demand that they get up and dance for him in class, say that tomorrow would be swimsuit day.

The teacher was known to also be rude to the boys at times.  The kids had complained about the way their teacher creeped on the girls.  And just like back in my day, there was nothing to be done about it.  The teacher told them so himself.  He had tenure.  He had withstood years of parental complaints.  When the boys complained, they were ignored.

But these wonderful young men were uncomfortable with what they saw.  So in this internet age they decided to take action.  They understand how the world works now.  They began crowdsourcing, and documenting his behavior.

"During COVID, as they attended class online, they’d open the Discord channel on a split-screen and document the teacher’s comments in real time:
“You all love me so choose love.”
“You gotta stand up and dance now.”
Everyone “in bathing suits tomorrow.”
Once they were back in class in person, the boys jotted down notes to add to the channel later: Flirting with one girl. Teasing another. Calling the girls “sweetheart” and “sunshine.” Asking one girl to take off her shoes and try wiggling her toes without moving her pinkies.
“I felt bad for [the girls] because sometimes it just seems like it was a humiliating thing,” the boy told the Globe. “He’d play a song and he’d make one of them get up and dance.”

When one girl filed a restraining order against the teacher, he was finally placed on leave.  There is currently a criminal investigation into him and another employee, a coach who performed naked "fat tests" on several teens in his basement.

I'm so very proud of these boys who took the initiative to protect their classmates.  I'm glad that I lived long enough to see the world change in this way.